There’s been no reality show, no stints in rehab and no tabloid-ready reports about her marriage and family, but maintaining a low profile hasn’t kept Tamia from being one of her generation’s most popular R&B artists. Ever since her appearance on Quincy Jones’ Q’s Jook Joint project, the Grammy Award nominated performer has used her five-octave range to garner hit after hit, consistently selling well on solo CDs thanks to hits like “So Into You,” “Stranger In My House” and “Me.” Her vocals are competent enough to excel in practically any genre, but it’s the airier mid-tempos and soothing slow-burners that dominate her first studio set in six years, Beautiful Surprise.
One of the ingredients to longevity is knowing where one’s lane is and staying within it: although she’s the executive producer and contributed lyrics to three of the tunes, Mrs. Hill leaves a majority of the lyrics and production to the oh-so-prolific Claude Kelly, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Anthony “Shep” Crawford and Musiq Soulchild’s songwriting team, Ivan Barias and Carvin Haggins. Jazmine Sullivan is also in the mix on arrangements and verses, so the feel and the sound of Surprise is a warm and well-crafted one. Tamia applies just the right touches of delicacy and dynamics as the compositions warrant, giving a lovelorn lilt to the crazy-in-love opener, “Lose My Mind,” sprinkling sultry sass into the danceable “Believe In Love” and pouring equal parts anguish and outrage in “It’s Not Fair,” a tumultuous tempest of a ballad that channels a woman scorned and easily becomes one of her best: “It’s not fair, it’s so wrong/ you’re not here, when all I did was give you my all. While mine breaks, her heart you hold/I guess my love wasn’t enough to keep you home.” Another track that’s heavy on the hurt and double on the drama, “Is It Over Yet,” posits her with eyes wide shut and denying to the very end that she’s about to be single again: “The taxi’s waiting in the driveway for you, you call my name, I guess you’re ready to leave/I’d like to help you, with a suitcase or two, but I’m afraid I’ll wind up down on my knees.”
Considering that there are only eleven tracks here, Tamia and Co. explore relationships quite thoroughly, whether it’s vulnerable and anxious (“Love I’m Yours”), testimonial (“Because of You”) or about the well-worn and lived-in type of love, featured in the giddy “Still Love You” and “Still,” a hit on 2004’s More re-callibrated this time around as a country styled confessional: “It still feels like the time we first met/that I kissed you and told you ‘I love you’/we still run around like teenagers even though we’re grown and married with kids.”
What fans crave from the Ontario native—an expertly-rendered soprano applied to lite jazz, soft rock and spiritual moments and neo-soul—is offered in abundance on this newest CD. Tamia’s insistence on quality and class keep listeners looking forward to the next move, so they will undoubtedly consider it Beautiful, even if its results aren’t entirely a Surprise. Highly Recommended.
By Melody Charles
http://www.soultracks.com/tamia-beautiful-review
